Why do so many people believe things that are obviously lies?
The internet is a crazy place for the truth nowadays, with more and more small groups with loud voices popping up every day. Religious fanatics, Fascists, Q-anon, Conspiracy theorists and extreme communists all share the same space, and spend most of the day shouting inconstant assumptions into the place where we increasingly spend almost all of our time.
I’m sure, you, like me, have seen an opinion so wholly removed from reality that you question the sanity of why the person could ever think that. But why do people fall for the lie? what makes us believe these things, then defend them until the end of the earth, even when we are shown constant facts to the contrary? It is a strong belief of mine that every human in the world holds at least one basic truth that is fundamentally wrong. Here’s why you may be holding on to one of yours.
- The idea suits or supports a greater believed Lie you have been broadcasting for a while.
no one wants to look stupid. many people, especially on the internet, will make a statement that gets a bit of traction. We live in a world where to concede is to be humiliated, and our social group may believe the idea so wholeheartedly that turning away from said idea may lead to excommunication.
Once we have said something, and defended it, it then becomes part of our whole personality, and standing in said perceived group. You wouldn’t want to look like a fool by admitting an idea or theory was wrong, so you double down. people have an amazing ability to start to believe what they say, if they say it enough.
2. We believe in Good verses Evil, and a good person cannot do evil things, and an evil person cannot be good.
Humans talk in stories. We believe in the (False) truth of good and evil, and allow our judgements to be clouded by our perception of how ‘on our side’ the person telling us something is. People forget that people, groups and governments are all fallible entities, and better is never better for everyone.
Once we believe a person or group to be inherently ‘Evil’ we no longer accept truths they may say, as we assume all of their rhetoric is inherently flawed. But this is never the case. A ‘Bad’ person can have a good idea, or make a beautiful thing, and a ‘Good’ person can do something despicable. Our view of it is distorted by the lens of how we view that person or group. We start to believe lies when we start to think there is no way a person from a certain group could ever hold an opinion similar to ourselves, so we ignore the bits we don’t like and believe things we probably shouldn't.
3. Many people don’t question beliefs.
Life is hectic, and hard. we don't all have an hour to sit down and question the nature of reality at 2 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. Convenience is the main reason people accept most things. There will be topics we care deeply about, and spend the time learning and worrying about, but the world is vast, and there is way to much to do to sit around philosophising about something that is going to have little effect on our day to day lives. This, however, is not going to stop me from having an online opinion about it. All people accept many things every day as truths without ever giving them thing a second thought, or looking into it at all. They will then regurgitate these ‘facts’ online, and get more defensive and intrenched the more these ideas are questioned.
4. Emotions are more important than how true something is, to everyone.
Sometimes the truth is hard, and ugly, and makes us feel like we are not a good person. How we process ‘Truths’ is tied so deeply to emotion, we don’t want to accept how horrible the world can be. Sometimes awful things happen to good people for no reason. we want to feel good, and right, and more than wanting to feel it, we want others to think it of us. So, we spread falsehoods that strengthen our emotional feelings towards the subject.
5. We make patterns where there are none for justification
The universe is a random mess of uncontrollable instances happening billions of times over, and simultaneously. we have no control over most things that happen to us, the people around us, or the world at large. We create false patterns to give ourselves and our lives meaning, then they become core beliefs, because they are part of the fabric of how we view and interoperate the world.
We lie to ourselves and others because the idea we don’t matter is an impossible one for people to grasp, and we want to feel cosy and safe. these lies are defence mechanisms against the screaming void we’d all encounter if we had to think for a moment how improbable our existence actually is, and how truly worthless we are in the grand scheme of the universe. These lies help us to live day to day, and that leads to my last point.
6. The Society ‘Noble Lie’ underlies everything we do, and allows us to see two contradicting statements to both be true.
in the 3rd century AD, Plato motioned the idea of the ‘Noble Lie’ without which no society can function, and since he put this idea forward it has been the basis of every civilisation since. The noble lie is a simple one, how do we get the workers to work if they know they are the same as the rulers?
Create a class system, and remove or belittle anyone who doesn’t conform to said systems. Make people believe it is their lot in life to slave away for the ‘Good of mankind’ and the wheels will turn as they should.
The noble lie is expressed in many ways in the modern world, Through money, race, religion, Social groups, Monarchy and even simple things like what your job title is. This enforced idea of the ‘Pecking order’ effects every thought we have, and every decision we make. Why is the king better than us? because he’s the king, of course! Why is Elon cleverer or more to be trusted than me? because he is wealthy, of course!
Our standing in our society, the religion we follow, the idols we chose influence our thoughts and beliefs every day. When these people say something, we assume instantly it must be true, because if they weren’t wise, and inherently better than us, how did they get to such lofty heights? They are our betters, our community leaders, our thought shepherds. how could they be wrong? and if their fallible, venerable and inconsistent, what does that say about me?
Conclusion
This seems depressing. It seems like the conclusion is ‘We are all wrong, pointless squabbles will always be there, and we’re doomed to an unphilosophical slow demise of thought. But this is not so. I think we can help ourselves by asking our self a simple question before we determine something to be a ‘fact’
WHY DO I BELIEVE THIS.
if the answer is something along the lines of ‘because this is what we’ve always believed’ ‘I was told this by a faith or community leader’ or ‘I learned this from a massively bias source’, we should probably accept the possibility it may not be the absolute truth. We need to be better at being wrong, changing our minds and owning it. We need to accept there are things people believe we will never grasp, and we need to accept no amount of arguing or logic or reason will change that. Maybe, we should all just be believing a lot less.
